1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to systems and methods of workforce data management to remotely acquire data associated with employees in an automated manner over a wireless network. Embodiments enable employee time management, expense and budget management, safety and security solutions and asset control within a predefined workforce environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, tracking employees in a given workforce environment enable companies to manage clock-ins and clock-outs of employees during scheduled time frames to ensure employees are working during their allotted time schedules.
Typically, work sites include a vast amount of entries and exits during a work period, as well as movement from one location to another within an enclosed environment. Generally, tracking employees' movements and tasks within a workforce environment requires constant monitoring. Typically, it is difficult to accurately capture the time and attendance of an employee during working hours, idle time of an employee during working hours, and therefrom accurately submitting timestamps for payroll and accounting. Generally, time-keeping of multiple employees in a given worksite raises a risk of credibility and accuracy of the timestamps obtained from each employee.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,848, entitled “Method and System for Time and Location Tracking”, to Ridge et al., discloses a method of tracking time and location of an employee based on a predefined schedule using a time tracking software installed on a mobile device. According to Ridge et al., the time tracking software enables detection of the presence, or lack of presence, of an electronic signal emitted by a near field communication, Bluetooth® low energy or other wireless device to trigger the mobile application to communicate to a server to determine if the employee is scheduled to work at a work zone to clock-in and/or clock-out the employee. However, the system of Ridge et al. appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the time and location data acquired via a wearable device to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device to clock-in and/or clock-out the employees.
United States Patent Publication 20130290200, entitled “Systems and Methods of Compliance Tracking”, to Singhal et al., appears to disclose a system and method that provides automated compliance and operations management services, wherein user tracking information may be received and stored. According to Singhal et al., the time tracking information may be analyzed to generate information for compliance or operations management to automate the process of monitoring, collecting, storing, analyzing and utilizing data and information. However, the system of Singhal et al. appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the time and location data acquired via a wearable device to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device to clock-in and/or clock-out the employees based on one or more conditions of the employees and the wearable device thereof.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,626,545, entitled “Predicting Future Performance of Multiple Workers on Crowdsourcing Tasks and Selecting Repeated Crowdsourcing Workers”, to Van Pelt et al., appears to disclose a system and method of a job distribution platform for aggregating performance data in a worker profile for workers in performing crowd source tasks. According to Van Pelt et al., the tasks may span current jobs and a history of pervious jobs distributed to the worker and the job performance data for the worker is collected for current and previous jobs, such that new jobs may be assigned to a worker selected based on performance data of the worker. However, the system of Van Pelt et al. appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the data acquired to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device clock-in and/or clock-out the workers based on one or more conditions of the employees and the wearable device thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,712,882 entitled “Predictive Time Entry for Workforce Management Systems”, to Niazi, appears to disclose methods and system for predictive approaches used to auto-populate timecards for and employee/contractor. According to Niazi, the systems and methods include a framework that may auto-populate timecards for employees using predictive approaches such as by looking at the patterns of time entry for the individual performing an entry of the time, and patterns of time entry of other team members within an organization. However, the system of Niazi appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the data acquired to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device to clock-in and/or clock-out the workers based on one or more conditions of the employees and the wearable device thereof.
For example, United States Patent Publication 20080177646, entitled “Work Site Remote Monitoring and Employee Time Tracking System and Method”, to Frink, appears to disclose a work site monitoring and employee time tracking system that includes a router for transporting data to and from the work site and a work site IP camera in communication with the router for transporting images from the work site to client computers. According to Frink, the system includes a biometric scanner to identify and clock-in and clock-out work site workers and to transmit identification, clock-in and clock-out data to a server computer. However, the system of Frink appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the data acquired to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device to clock-in and/or clock-out the workers based on one or more conditions of the employees and the wearable device thereof.
United States Patent Publication 20150095171, entitled “Automated Employee Management Techniques”, to Morgan et al., appears to disclose techniques for automated employee management wherein a clock action for an employee is acquired and analyzed based on rules, wherein a decision is made whether to automatically accept the clock action, automatically deny the clock action or interactively request approval from a supervisor for the clock action. However, the system of Morgan et al. appears to lack any teaching or suggestion of determining the accuracy of the data acquired to automatically and appropriately aggregate data obtained from the wearable device to clock-in and/or clock-out the workers based on one or more conditions of the employees and the wearable device thereof.
In view of the above, there is a need for a system and method of workforce management to accurately acquire and process data associated with employees.